Bar guns are typically provided for dispensing a beverage into a container. Sometimes bar guns are provided with the capability to dispense a multiple of different syrups along with soda water. That is to say, a single bar gun may be adapted, in ways familiar to the art, to dispense a number of different flavored drinks.
A bar gun is typically engaged to a flow control and manifold assembly. At an inlet end of a flow control and manifold assembly, a multiplicity of fluid containing lines, carrying pressurized fluid (typically a multiplicity of different syrups along with soda water) are engaged with the flow control and manifold assembly. These various fluids are typically received by the flow control and manifold assembly at a high inlet end pressure. That is, at an upstream or inlet end of a typical flow control and manifold assembly different fluids in a multiplicity of individual lines are received. The rate of flow for each fluid is selectively controlled by elements of the flow control manifold and assembly. The controlled flow is delivered to the individual lines at the outlet end of the assembly.
A function of a flow control and manifold assembly is to receive a multiplicity of fluids from high pressure tanks, to provide flow control mechanisms designed to allow the user to adjust the flow between the inlet of the fluid to the flow control assembly and the outlet from the manifold. Doing so will deliver a controlled fluid flow to the bar gun, which fluid can be dispensed by the user with on/off buttons of the bar gun.
Prior art flow control and manifold assemblies typically include either a self-adjusting flow control assembly or a mechanical flow control assembly. While the fluid flow through may be manually set by a user in both, typically with a screwdriver, a self-adjusting flow control assembly will tend to maintain the user's selected flow control despite a change in pressure upstream of the assembly. A mechanical flow control assembly will typically be manually set from time to time when there is a significant drop or change upstream fluid pressure.
It is the purpose generally of flow control assemblies to provide both a manifold for receipt of a multiplicity of lines from a multiplicity of tanks in an arranged manner, typically linearly, and to provide at an outlet of a manifold a multiplicity of outlets corresponding to the inlets, providing fluid at a controlled flow and whose geometrical arrangement is altered from the typically linear inlet side to a circular arrangement, so that the lines may be inserted into and carried by a flexible sheath.